Rottweilers Ate My Laptop

Rottweilers. Computers. Cameras. World Domination. Not necessarily in that order.

Rottweilers.
Computers. Cameras.
World Domination.
Not necessarily in that order.

Good stuff, bad stuff

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Good stuff: Switching over DNS for the domains on the new VPS went well. I remain impressed with WiredTree. I may not have mentioned yesterday that they are local to me. Downtown Chicago location, local tech support, not outsourced. Life is good.

Next week I will be moving most of the personal domains, and strangely enough, that is going to probably be more complicated than moving the company domain. The personal domains have things like guestbooks (I know, I know. I don’t do guestbooks for my own domains, but some people still want and like them. Not me personally, but I don’t judge) and photo galleries. I have this blog and a couple of others. So there are quite a few MySQL databases to move. The company website doesn’t currently include a blog or forum, so there was no MySQL to deal with yesterday or today. I don’t think I’m going to have an issue with PHP versions (maybe on one domain) but you never know.

Bad stuff: Spammers finally found this blog. It was sporadic up until the last couple of weeks, but since then it’s been a daily occurrence. No real comments here in a day or so, but the spam from jagoff spammers from foreign countries continues. Screw you all, foreign spammers, and yay for Akismet, without which the issues of keeping up with spam killing would be much more onerous.

More bad stuff: Some of the jagoffs who live in this neighborhood truly make me sick. I really do like some of my neighbors. I won’t say I actively wish harm upon the others. There is that Clarence Darrow quote I’ve always liked, though:

I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.

There ya go!

(NaBloPoMo | May ‘09: 16 of 31 | 75% Challenge: 112 of 274)

Quick progress report

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I keep falling asleep while attempting to tag and categorize. Maybe my blog is even more boring than I originally thought.

I want to take a moment to say a good word for WiredTree. I am moving my company’s domain to a VPS at WiredTree. This move started late Friday afternoon in order to minimize website, FTP site and particularly email downtime during business hours. I ordered the server online at about 4:30PM. I received a phone call to confirm my order about 40 minutes later, shortly before I left work.

The sales rep estimated that the server would be provisioned in a “couple of hours.” It was! I received the welcome email around 7:00PM. After supper, I uploaded website files and created email accounts prior to switching over DNS. The introductory documentation and knowledge base provided were great. My only issue was self-inflicted because I didn’t read the entire introductory document first.

I still had one question and just put in a support ticket a little while ago. Note the time of the post. I got a response in about 10 minutes, while I was writing this. Very impressed so far with what seems to truly be 24/7 support!

Tomorrow I switch over DNS and hopefully I don’t screw that up. This VPS will have only two domains on it initially (our company’s domain and that of a partner’s family member) so if I manage to screw that up I should probably look for another type of work.

(NaBloPoMo | May ‘09: 15 of 31 | 75% Challenge: 111 of 274)

Memories almost lost (27 of 30/93 of 274)

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I didn’t think the upcoming closing of Geocities would have much of an effect on me. Like everyone else who was on the ‘net 15 years ago, I did have a Geocities page at one time. Even back then, it wasn’t my “real” website, but just another free service and another excuse to post some pictures of my Rottweilers (my very first Rottweilers) and a link to my real website. It disappeared a while ago due to inactivity and I barely even noticed.

I help maintain websites for a few friends, and the ones who started out on Geocities have long since moved either to my VPS, to Yahoo! Small Business Hosting, or to one of the many discount web hosts who charge less than $10 per month and whose names I barely remember.

All around the ‘net, people are either wallowing in overly sentimental reminiscences about their first websites at Geocities, or else snarking about how bad the service was. Archive Team is in the process of saving as many Geocities sites as possible. They say they’ve already archived everything from 1999 and before.

I didn’t think any of this affected me. Until I was looking through my Rottweiler bookmarks and realized that one of the sites has a photo and story about my dear departed Jake’s sire Aiko. Obviously that link won’t work whenever we reach “later this year.” I don’t know if the web site owner plans to archive or move his site. I’ve never saved the photo and story (just for personal use of course), and I would be very sad if I could never see them again.

So check your bookmarks and see if anything you cherish is out there on Geocities. Just in case.

If I disappear off the face of the ‘net (20 of 30/86 of 274)

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It has been nasty and rainy in a most un-springlike way all day. The Rottweilers have endured a second straight day of being cooped up indoors due to that nasty weather, and they are literally bouncing off the furniture. The grace and form of my 110-lb. dog as he takes a flying leap off the couch would be impressive if he were destroying someone else’s living room.

I am working on moving some of the domains I am responsible for into shiny new homes, and also working on a slight repositioning and redesign of this blog. If I seem to disappear off the face of the ‘net at any time, don’t be too alarmed. I promise I’ll be back someday!

Blogs and dogs (19 of 30/85 of 274)

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As predicted, it’s been raining all day today. The Rottweiler wrecking crew has been extremely annoying due to a lack of exercise and entertainment due to the rain. They have finally fallen asleep due to boredom. I was very pleased to find a website from a local training facility showing sample Rally Obedience courses. Not only are they free to download, they are also set up for a small room, meaning that I will be able to use them almost as-is in the backyard for practice. Couldn’t use them today, of course, thanks to the ongoing rain!

On the other hand, a rainy day provided a perfect opportunity to catch up on “31 Days to Build a Better Blog.” I got kind of stuck on the Day 4 task of analyzing a top blog in my niche. I was not quite sure how best to search for “top personal blogs concentrating on pets and technology.” I did my best, though, and have come to the conclusion that if I want to be more popular within my niche, the following things must happen:

  • I have to have funnier or cuter dogs
  • I have to become an actual expert about either dogs or technology
  • When I go off-topic, I have to write about sex or relationships, or else use the F-word more

Our upcoming adventures in competition should provide some moments that are funny as all get-out to everyone but me, and like the time I tripped over my dog in the obedience ring, they will even be funny to me in a month (or two or three). I will probably never become an actual expert, but every day I add to the list of dog training techniques that have unexpected results, and things that can go wrong with technology. That’s gotta be worth something. But I’m never going to write about sex and relationships. Ever.

Day 5’s task was to email new blog readers. I haven’t had a new commenter in a few days, and I reply to almost every comment on the blog as a matter of course. But I will definitely put this into practice as soon as a new reader or first-time commenter shows up. I will also try to be a bit more active in commenting on other blogs. I know I’ve been somewhat lax in that regard, even with blogs I read daily.

I’ve also read through many of the Day 6 tips and tutorials from some well-known and successful bloggers. Whether or not you are not doing 31DBBB, that post and the links within are well worth reading. Even if you believe you’re at the top of your blogging game, I think you will come away with something to think about from at least a few of the articles referenced.